Russia, which sent into space the first artificial satellite, the first man and the first woman, has now launched a competition to select new cosmonauts.

State space agency Roscosmos Friday said interested candidates should apply with the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre located in Star City, Moscow, reported RIA Novosti.

A lucky few will be selected for cosmonaut training by a commission made up of representatives of the training centre, rocket and space corporation Energia and the Institute of Biomedical Problems.

The Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre last year held a recruitment test for potential cosmonauts.

Gagarin was a Soviet Air Force pilot. He was the first human to journey into outer space when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth April 12, 1961.

The first woman as well as the first civilian to fly into space, Valentina Tereshkova was selected out of more than 400 applicants to pilot the Vostok 6 in June 1963.

The first artificial satellite Sputnik 1 launched by the erstwhile Soviet Union was put into Earth's orbit in October 1957.